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Kinematically complete experimental study of Compton scattering at helium atoms near the threshold

Nature Physics volume 16, pages 756–760 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Compton scattering is one of the fundamental interaction processes of light with matter. When discovered1, it was described as a billiard-type collision of a photon ‘kicking’ a quasi-free electron. With decreasing photon energy, the maximum possible momentum transfer becomes so small that the corresponding energy falls below the binding energy of the electron. In this regime, ionization by Compton scattering becomes an intriguing quantum phenomenon. Here, we report on a kinematically complete experiment studying Compton scattering off helium atoms in that regime. We determine the momentum correlations of the electron, the recoiling ion and the scattered photon in a coincidence experiment based on cold target recoil ion momentum spectroscopy, finding that electrons are not only emitted in the direction of the momentum transfer, but that there is a second peak of ejection to the backward direction. This finding links Compton scattering to processes such as ionization by ultrashort optical pulses2, electron impact ionization3,4, ion impact ionization5,6 and neutron scattering7, where similar momentum patterns occur.

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Fig. 1: Scheme of ionization by Compton scattering at hν = 2.1 keV.
Fig. 2: Electron and ion momentum distributions for different momentum transfer gates.
Fig. 3: Electron energy distribution.
Fig. 4: Fully differential electron angular distributions.

Data availability

The data that support the plots within this Letter are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

Code availability

The code that supports the theoretical plots within this Letter is available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by DFG and BMBF. O.C. acknowledges support from the Hulubei-Meshcheryakov programme JINR-Romania and the RUDN University Program 5-100. Y.V.P. is grateful to the Russian Foundation of Basic Research (RFBR) for financial support under grant no. 19-02-00014a. S.H. thanks the Direction Generale de la Recherche Scientifique et du Developpement Technologique (DGRSDT-Algeria) for financial support. We are grateful to the staff of PETRA III for excellent support during the beam time. Calculations were performed on the Central Information and Computer Complex and heterogeneous computing platform HybriLIT through supercomputer ‘Govorun’ of JINR.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Kernphysik, J. W. Goethe Universität, Frankfurt, Germany

    Max Kircher, Sven Grundmann, Isabel Vela-Perez, Jonas Rist, Sebastian Eckart, Till Jahnke, Markus S. Schöffler & Reinhard Dörner

  2. FS-PETRA-S, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Hamburg, Germany

    Florian Trinter & Kai Bagschik

  3. Molecular Physics, Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin, Germany

    Florian Trinter

  4. Institut für Theoretische Physik, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany

    Simon Brennecke, Nicolas Eicke & Manfred Lein

  5. LPQSD, Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University Sétif-1, Setif, Algeria

    Salim Houamer

  6. Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Moscow, Russia

    Ochbadrakh Chuluunbaatar & Yuri V. Popov

  7. Institute of Mathematics and Digital Technologies, Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

    Ochbadrakh Chuluunbaatar

  8. Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Moscow, Russia

    Ochbadrakh Chuluunbaatar

  9. Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia

    Yuri V. Popov & Igor P. Volobuev

  10. Sorbonne Universités, CNRS, UMR 7614, Laboratoire de Chimie Physique Matière et Rayonnement, Paris, France

    M. Novella Piancastelli

  11. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    M. Novella Piancastelli

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  1. Max Kircher
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Contributions

M.K., F.T., S.G., I.V.-P., J.R., S.E., K.B., M.N.P., T.J., M.S.S. and R.D. contributed to the experimental work. S.B., N.E., S.H., O.C., Y.V.P., I.P.V. and M.L. contributed to theory and numerical simulations. All authors contributed to the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Max Kircher or Reinhard Dörner.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Physics thanks Steven Manson, Andre Staudte and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Video 1

Electron and ion momentum distributions for different scattering angles. Here, the blue arrow indicates the direction of the incoming photon, the light green arrow the direction of the scattered photon and the dark purple arrow the direction of the momentum transfer.

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Kircher, M., Trinter, F., Grundmann, S. et al. Kinematically complete experimental study of Compton scattering at helium atoms near the threshold. Nat. Phys. 16, 756–760 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-0880-2

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